There's a lot of speculation that Kimbrel has suffered a drop in velocity and that's the reason he is getting hit this season. That's simply a myth. Kimbrel's average fastball velocity this season is 96.0. In 2012 it was 96.8. So mere percentage points separates Kimbrel's velocity the last two seasons.
Taking it back even further and we see that Kimbrel's average fastball velocity was 95.4 and 96.2 in 2010 and 2011 respectively.
The next question you ask yourself, "Is Kimbrel still getting the same movement on his fastball this season?", and the answer is yes.
In fact Kimbrel is generating more movement on his fastball this season than he did last season. He has a horizontal movement this season of -5.7 compared to -5.6 last season.
What that means is that his fastball from his release point is moving -5.7 inches to the left on a horizontal plane. On a vertical plane we see that Kimbrel's fastball moves 7.3 inches down from his release point over 7.0 last season.
So when looking at velocity and movement Craig Kimbrel is the same pitcher he has always been. So why is he getting hit more this season than he did in 2011 or 2012? It's because he is using his fastball more this season than he has in his career.
But it's not just that he's throwing his fastball more. It's the situations in which he is using his fastball move. According to Brooks Baseball, Kimbrel is throwing his fastball when ahead in the count to left-handed hitters 55 percent of the time this season up from 49 percent in 2012.
Against right-handed batter's it's even worse with him throwing his fastball 74 percent of the time when ahead in the count compared to just 62 percent in 2012. That's a huge difference. When ahead in the count to right-handed batters Kimbrel has all but abandoned his curveball, leading to hitters sitting dead red and not missing it.
Any major league hitter will tell you if you see the fastball enough from a pitcher, sooner or later, you'll time it. In order for Kimbrel to get back on track he must start throwing his curveball more to regain the advantage he had with his fastball which is completely overpowering when hitters don't know which pitch is coming.
Craig Kimbrel is a smart guy. He will eventually figure out that he needs to throw his curveball more in order to get back to dominating hitters. Until then we'll just have to deal with him struggling, especially against right-handed hitters who have the advantage of knowing a fastball is coming a whopping 84 percent of the time.
